The Muslim Council of Montreal (MCM) is an umbrella organization representing number of Muslim institutions in the Montreal region.

Montreal,
Quebec, February 14th, 2011- The Muslim
Council of Montreal (MCM) denounced the recent bill tabled by Conservative MP
Steven Blaney in the House of Commons, seeking to ban the wearing of face veils
when voting in federal elections.

“The
Conservatives are intentionally seeking to stir up trouble and are trying to
use xenophobia against Canadian Muslims in a shameful attempt to gain votes,”
stated Salam Elmenyawi, president of MCM. “This is nothing more than an attempt
at institutionalized discrimination. There is no place in a liberal democracy
like Canada for the government to legislate discrimination against law-abiding
members of religious minority groups.”

MCM notes that Elections Canada did not report a
single incident with face veils occurring in the 2008 federal elections.
According to the Elections Canada Act, voters cannot be compelled to show their
faces and many voters have no photo ID to compare their faces to.

“Clearly the
wearing of face veils when voting is a non-issue and is just being used to
increase hysteria,” Elmenyawi said. “When voters in general are not asked to
identify themselves with photo ID, why are a small minority of Canadian Muslim
women being singled out by this bill? The bill is even more absurd given that
250,000 Canadians voted by mail in the 2008 federal election. It is disgraceful
to see the Conservatives engaging in such wedge politics and this will only
serve to increase bigotry and weaken social cohesion.”

Quebec MP Steven
Blaney introduced the bill in the House of Commons on Friday, seeking to force
voters casting ballots in a federal election to show their faces. The bill has
been criticized by both the Liberals and NDPs.

The Muslim Council of Montreal (MCM) is an umbrella
organization representing a number of Islamic institutions in the Montreal
region. There are over 225,000 Muslims in Montreal, about 1,000,000 in Canada
and 1.9 billion worldwide.